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Protected: The Jeweled Pomegranate Week 1
NanoWrimo Counter
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“You think maybe Verve isn’t always going to be reading so maybe she can take a turn on dishes?”
“Afraid not,” Jenivere deadpanned back at him. “I am going to be reading until I die. That’s the problem with being a wizard — you literally can’t stop reading.”
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She paused by the settee. One writer had spent a particularly long time describing this piece of furniture, in particular the way that is had cachobons set into the arms and three into the back of the piece. While the writer had not assumed they were magical in purpose or nature, such things had not been quite such common knowledge in the Harve i’s time.
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She’d also ordered take-out from the one place willing to drive out to the middle of Nowhere and Cowsville, a pretty decent pizza-and-pub-food place in the nearest town. The pizza sat on the counter next to a soda; she wasn’t going to get pizza grease on Aunt Asta’s journals, even if she was subjecting them to heat, chemicals, and a light dabbing with distilled water.
OC-Tober, Week One
The idea of OC-tober (here) is to create something featuring one of your OC’s as a listed creature. This is 6 of the first 7 days.
2. Vampire
The alley hadn’t been any different from any other alley she’d found herself in: grubby, dark, lined with dumpsters, just out of sight of Leo and Zita doing… whatever it was they did.
When she’d turned around and seen a set of eyes that seemed to draw her in, her last conscious thought had been oh no, not again. Continue reading
Swale Lake
Originally posted on Patreon in October 2018 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
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This story brought to you by someone introducing me to the Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Bobby_Dunbar~*~
“The boy was confused.”
In the years to come, that would be said more than any other phrase in relation to the Bobby Dagmar case.
It was also both the most accurate and, considering how it was used, the least correct.
They would also say that he had hit his head, temporarily suffering thus from severe nearsightedness and hearing loss. They had the symptoms correct in this case, but not the cause.
But what nobody ever quite could answer was why neither potential mother — Mrs. Dagmar nor the woman who claimed the boy was Jules Whittier — recognized the boy until they bathed him.
“I Feel Like Killing the Tzar”
The Oalderapo had a tradition: If you indicated your intentions and nobody stopped you, you were free of any repercussions for those actions, unless the entire town suffered with you.
Over time, this had evolved: one could not, normally, simply say “I feel like killing the tzar” and have nobody stop you, but one could paint a very clear picture of one’s self killing said tzar and then wait twenty-four hours.
That had only happened once.
The next tzar had banned literal representations of crimes in paintings, sculptures, or drawings.
Three tzars later, interpretive dance and poetry of criminal act were banned.
One could go back to saying “I feel like killing the tzar tomorrow;” one could try to say it very sarcastically. One could write allegory, or plays.
Or one could run with idiom. For instance: Most ships where an Oalderapaline served had a ship painted on the starboard deck and a broom painted on the port. One could indicate by a simple game of hopscotch if one planned to jump ship or jump broom.
On the ship Epalanano, named for the tzar who had banned paintings, there was also a drawing of a grave, a nice one, and a piece of chalk, although the current Tzar’s name had taken up near-permanent residence.
Today, there was quite a bit of dancing.
Written to October 4th’s Thimbleful Thursday Prompt: https://thimblefulthursday.wordpress.com/2018/10/04/thimbleful-thursday-prompt-54/
Bliss, Ignorance, Beauty – Truth?
There was a room in the middle of the megalopolis, in the heart of the business district, in the center of a skyscraper.
The room was not large, not in a place that used every inch of space and climbed higher for more, but it was enough.
It occupied a corner of no-man’s-land made when two zaibatsu had expanded into all other available space between them, a place neither had claimed quickly enough and now wouldn’t dare usurp. It was hard to find; you had to be told where it was, and even then, you usually had to be guided.
Almost unique in all the megalopolis, there was no charge to enter, but one was only allowed to stay for an hour at a time, and one was only allowed to visit once per week.
Because in this strange room with the very soft floor and the even softer furniture, with no gatekeeper save one small robot that looked like nothing more than a miniature flying saucer; in here, staring at the ceiling made to look like a sky with no buildings around, for your allotted hour – you could forget.
In here, you would feel the breeze on your skin, the sunshine on your face, the grass beneath your hands, and for an hour, you would be blissfully ignorant of everything the world had to offer.
Written to Sept. 27th’s Thimbleful Writing Prompt – Ignorance is Bliss.
A New World 28: Dangers of Distraction
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Kael made her way carefully back towards her Tower. She had imbibed more than she’d intended to, and the world was even more different than it had seemed upon waking. Louder, for one.
She had Gemma’s “number.” She was pretty sure that she could figure out what to do with it, but she was also fairly sure that she would end up back at the museum where Gemma worked, trying to figure out the mysteries that made no sense.
Where was Joaon? He had to know what was going on. Where had the potions go? Where were all the potion-masters, all the knowledge that she had so carefully studied and documented? Where was everything she had worked so hard for?
Had she abandoned the world and left it without knowledge? It couldn’t be – she tripped over a bar that seemed to be put in the middle of the sidewalk just to annoy her and caught herself with a curse word that was definitely no longer in the local tongue. Continue reading
A New World 27: Burning Books
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After a moment, Kael realized that Gemma was staring at her. She cleared her throat and, when that didn’t stop the staring, took a long sip of her drink.
“You know….” Gemma said slowly. “The first thing you said to me started with idiots. But I don’t see how making a plant extinct is a good idea. And ah -” If she had been irked about the bar, she was trying not to be angry now. “Is that how you see everything? Beautiful painting, oh, look, a potion ingredient. Lovely landscape, look for potion ingredients”
“Pretty girl,” Kael offered dryly, “either talk too much about potion ingredients, take her looking for potion ingredients, or think about the forbidden potions where a lock of her hair would be the final touch.”
“There aren’t- those are fairy tales, aren’t they? Drop of blood, lock of hair, that sort of thing?” Continue reading
Thimbleful Thursday: Zonked
I think the best warning for this one is: This creeped me out. No body horror but brain horror.
“We have an agreement.” The woman’s smile was fake. “You signed the papers, the money has been deposited, and you are ready to comply.”
“Yes.” Tepha nodded shortly. “You have my thumbprint. You have my consent, and I’ve seen the money in the account.” She put down her Access – the cheapest possible one, but it did show her things like bank accounts. She’d done the three swipes necessary to take the account out of her name. She couldn’t touch it anymore, and that was important.
“Good. Now, I know you’ve probably heard some things about the Procedure. Half of those are lies and the other half… well. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Considering the things Tepha had heard, that was not remotely comforting.
It didn’t need to be. She wasn’t here for comfort.
She sat down in the chair the woman indicated. She closed her eyes.
“We can’t sedate you for this part, but don’t worry. Most people lose consciousness very quickly.”
She didn’t know if that was a good thing. She knew – if half the rumors were true – that nothing was the same after you’d been Zonked. She knew – if even a quarter of the rumors were true – that it wasn’t reversible.
None of that mattered.
The wires attached to her head. The pill set on her tongue, a wafer that tasted fakely of fruit. She felt it dissolve. She felt a sudden jolt of pain. And then…
Then she felt nothing.
“There we go.” The woman removed the wires and waved her hand in front of Tepha’s face. The eyes tracked. There was no expression.
“Good.” The woman nodded. “Stand up and go through the blue door. Follow the instructions you are given.”
Zonked people were cheaper than robots, could often still handle independent thought, and the price of feeding and housing them was minimized by their lack of want. If the woman found them creepy… feeling was not part of her job description either.
The woman who had been Tepha did as she had been told. There was nothing in her to suggest any desire to do otherwise.
Written to July 19th’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt: Zonked Out
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